ILLINOIS Bill Would License Medical Estheticians
Bill Name: House Bill 4281 (HB 4281)
Primary Sponsor: Representative Travis Weaver
Status: 4/05/2024 Rule 19(a) / Re-referred to Rules Committee
AmSpa’s Take: There has been a strong national trend to expand esthetician scopes of practice to include more invasive cosmetic procedures. These bills often face significant debate over the exact scope of the additional treatments. As a result, many bills of this type can become stuck in committee and fail to pass.
Outlook: This bill is in the first steps of the process.
Analysis: Currently, in Illinois, as in most states, estheticians can provide a number of skin care services but are unable to provide treatments that qualify as the practice of medicine. For example, they can exfoliate the stratum corneum, the outermost layer of skin, but may not pierce living tissue. However, the person may be able to serve as an unlicensed medical assistant (MA) under the supervision of a physician. Under HB 4281, a new certification would be created, certified medical esthetician (CME), which would include a number of cosmetic medical treatments that are currently outside the scope of practice of estheticians.
Licensed estheticians would be eligible to obtain this certification after satisfying additional training requirements. HB 4281 does not specify what or how much additional training is needed and instead leaves it to the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) to adopt rules. With the CME certification, the esthetician would be able to provide a number of cosmetic medical treatments, including microdermabrasion, dermaplaning, microneedling and radio frequency treatments. HB 4281 describes the scope of services as the same as what an MA can perform under the supervision of a physician. With the CME certification, the esthetician would be able to perform these treatments without physician supervision.
Over the last several years, many states have adopted expanded scopes of practice for estheticians and cosmetologists. Sometimes this is done as additional certifications, sometimes it is a separate “advanced” or “master” esthetician license, and, occasionally, it includes specific treatments added to the esthetician’s existing scope of practice. In that regard, HB 4281 is squarely within this trend. These types of bills often get changed and amended significantly if they pass to address the limits of the authorized medical treatments; that will likely be the case here, as well. As an example, this bill does not address laser or intense pulsed light (IPL) use, but physicians are able to delegate these treatments to MAs, and so it would seem unsupervised performance by a CME would be allowed as HB 4281 is currently written. If you would like additional information, to read the language of the bill or to contact the sponsors or committee, you can find the information you need through this link.